


always in this twilight

by aliatori



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Birthday, Getting Together, M/M, Reunions, happy birthday noctis i love you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 18:18:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15846759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliatori/pseuds/aliatori
Summary: "You said I get to make a wish?""Anything you want," Ignis says, smiling. "You just have to blow all the candles out at once."An exploration of Noctis's birthday throughout the years.





	always in this twilight

**Author's Note:**

> Written in celebration of our favourite Prince, who deserves all the love in the world. <3

** zero **

Noctis doesn’t remember his first birthday, but the Astrals recall his birth, their divine gaze fixed upon the Chosen King as he enters the world, screaming and red faced. It galls them to have their hopes rest in such a fragile, mortal vessel, but it’s the only option they have, so they watch.

And they wait.

** five **

Papa tells him about the magic of the crystal, how it keeps Lucis safe, how one day, lots of birthdays after this one, he’ll be able to use the magic of the crystal too. Noctis nods, fidgeting in his high backed chair, his deep blue eyes fixed on the gigantic cake behind Papa. It has a lot of layers—he thinks six, but he counts them twice to be sure—all of them covered in thick, fluffy frosting. He’s already wondering if Papa will let him have two pieces when Ignis taps him on the shoulder, green eyes wide behind his big, round glasses, and points at Papa.

“Noctis, are you listening?”

“Yeah,” he says sheepishly, eyes falling to the black and silver plate on the placemat in front of him. He crosses his ankles under the table and swings them back and forth, ansty. 

"Are you _sure_?" Papa doesn’t sound mad—his voice is warm like his favourite blanket, not booming like thunder when he thinks Noctis can’t hear—but he doesn’t sound like he believes Noctis, either.

"No." His legs move faster underneath the table. "Sorry, Papa. I was thinking about the cake," Noctis admits.

Papa must think that’s funny, because he laughs and walks over to Noctis, ruffling his hair with one hand before placing a kiss on the top of his head. "Then I suppose we’d better get it ready."

Some of Papa’s helpers bring the cake over, and others dim the lights in the private dining room. The cake is placed in front of Noctis, the heat from the candles making the air shiny above them. There are five—he counts them twice to be sure—because he’s turning five.

Noctis glances up at his Papa before turning to Iggy. "You said I get to make a wish?"

"Anything you want," Ignis says, smiling. "You just have to blow all the candles out at once." 

Noctis knows some things about magic, but he’s not too sure about wishes, and he doesn’t want to waste the only one he gets until his next birthday. "If I wish for Mama to come back, will it work?"

Ignis stops smiling. His Papa does too, and Noctis wonders if maybe he accidentally did something wrong.

"Why don’t you try it and see?" Papa asks.

Noctis takes a breath and blows.

(It doesn’t work.)

** nine **

Noctis misses his ninth birthday.

That’s what they tell him when he wakes up in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed, surrounded by unfamiliar faces that all wear the same expression. He’s positioned right in the sun, and the light prickles at his eyes like needles, and he hurts all over.

"How are you feeling?" Two big hands cradle one of his own, the one hanging off the side of the ivory sheets, and he looks so worried that Noctis might cry.

He doesn’t cry, though.

"Tired," Noctis mumbles.

"Of course you are," his dad says, squeezing his hand. "You need your rest, Noctis. Sleep."

That much he can do. Noctis nods, his eyelids drifting closed, and sleeps again. He’s never had bad dreams before, but now, all of them are bad, full of burning cars and roaring monsters and his back drenched in his own warm blood. It’s not until Carbuncle comes and curls around his head that the dreams stop, banished by the somnolent magic his tiny friend has.

The next time he wakes up, he meets Luna.

Her name is Lunafreya. Every time he tries to say it, though, it slips around his tongue, the right sounds difficult to make. She laughs (with him, not at him) and says to call her Luna.

He does.

She’s wonderful, pretty and kind and smart, and she has two dogs called Pryna and Umbra that are really nice too. She’s the only one who really listens to his answers when she asks him a question, and as the days pass by and he gets better, they talk more and more. Aside from Ignis, Luna becomes his first real friend, and eventually, she gives him a gift.

"Take the notebook with you when you go," Luna tells him, the page open to a sylleblossom, stuck onto the page with a wax seal instead of sewn into a crown.

She couldn’t have known what would happen anymore than Noctis did.

The notebook makes it out of Tenebrae.

Lunafreya—Luna—doesn’t.

** ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen **

His birthday doesn’t seem worth celebrating. Not for a long time, anyway.

** sixteen **

Prompto helps.

As they’re walking home from school together, as has been their habit since Prompto came up and introduced himself to Noctis like they were strangers, Prompto thinks aloud with all of his usual enthusiasm.

"Dude, it’s gonna be awesome. Mana Quest III comes out, like, the week before your birthday _and_ summer holiday is coming. We can do nothing but eat, sleep, and grind levels until our eyeballs fall out."

"I think I’d like to keep my eyeballs," Noctis says with a quiet laugh, "but the rest sounds good." He switches his schoolbag from one hand to the other so he can hold it over the opposite shoulder. "The real question is, what do we do about Specs?"

"Just, I dunno… pull the birthday card! Tell him we’ll order takeout and we promise to shower and we won’t trash the place too much. Probably. If you ask _really_ nicely, I’m sure he’ll be cool."

"Clearly you haven’t spent as much time around Specs as I thought," Noctis says with a grimace. "He probably thinks I should split my holiday up between political reports and training with Gladio, with a side of studying for exams if there’s any time leftover." 

A frown crosses Prompto’s face for an instant before disappearing, replaced with an enthusiastic grin. "C’mon, I mean… Ignis is serious, but he’s not heartless, right? Just ask!"

The words ‘Ignis’ and ‘heartless’ send Noctis’s thoughts into a whirling freefall. He scoffs and turns his head away from Prompto, if only to hide the blush he can’t stop from creeping into his cheeks. The only thing more stupid than his crush on Ignis is thinking it will ever go anywhere.

"I’ll ask, but don’t hold your breath. I’m not."

As it turns out, Noctis could have held his breath. Aside from a long, scrutinizing stare from behind his impeccably clean glasses, there’s no outward sign that Ignis’s feathers are ruffled by the plan.

"So long as I don’t have to fight tooth and nail for you to attend your mandatory observation sessions of the Council… and with your solemn promise that you’ll consume _something_ green during the week… I see no reason why you and Prompto can’t have the time largely to yourselves."

Blech. Should have known Specs would figure out a way to drag vegetables into it. "What about training with Gladio?"

Ignis smirks at him, and the wicked curve of his lips makes Noctis shiver in a way that has nothing to do with the temperature of his apartment. "I’d suggest not skipping your training sessions with Gladio, but please, do let me know if you intend to. The result should be highly entertaining." After a beat, Ignis adds, "for me, at any rate."

With their victory secured, it’s one of the best birthdays Noctis can remember. He and Prompto order so much takeout that the Crownsguard lady assigned to his apartment ends up dating the guy who delivers it, they crush all 63 levels of Mana Quest III, Prompto doesn’t mention any princely related subject matters for the entire week, and it’s perfect.

When Prompto apologizes for not getting him a gift, Noctis shakes his head.

"Nah. Don’t sweat it."

What he’d _like_ to say is that Prompto’s company, his _friendship_ , is a gift enough, but just like the last two syllables in Luna’s name, he’s too clumsy to make the words come out right.

** seventeen **

His seventeenth birthday is by and large a repeat of his sixteenth, with some minor differences.

The game is Daemon’s Gate II, and Ignis and Gladio come over and spend the evening with them, and Prompto documents the whole thing with a fancy DSLR camera Noctis gave him for _his_ last birthday.

When Prompto hands Noctis the camera to show him the pictures he took later, after everyone is gone, he finds himself staring at certain pictures far longer than others. Ignis in profile, all sharp cheekbones and bold nose, apron covered in flour with a splotch on his face to match. Gladio, pulling Noctis into a side hug with a broad grin, amber eyes sparkling with joy, his blue Crownsguard hat settled backwards on the top of Noctis’s unstyled hair.

That night, after Prompto falls asleep on the couch with one leg and arm dangling off the side of it, Noctis grabs his phone and types eight words into Moogle: _can you have a crush on two people._

** eighteen **

On his eighteenth birthday, Ignis kisses him. Or he kisses Ignis.

He’s not really sure which. Both?

After Prompto and Gladio leave the apartment, Noctis pitches in with the cleanup, not out of any altruistic motivation but for an excuse to stay in Ignis’s orbit, to steal accidental brushes of hands as they exchange dishes and jostling of hips as they navigate the narrow kitchen aisle.

"I’d say that was rather a success," Ignis declares. He smiles at Noctis, an _actual_ smile, not the strained smile he makes whenever High Councilman Antonious takes the floor for more than three minutes (“Fucking prick,” Ignis mutters during recess when it’s just he and Noctis left in the Council chambers, a feat that stuns Noctis into model behavior for the rest of the meeting), or the curt smile when Noct complains about how early school starts (“I’ll entertain your grousing once you’re required to be awake at four thirty six days a week, _Highness_ ”).

"Yeah, it was fun." Noctis shuffles his slippered feet, takes a deep breath, rubs the back of his head, and then _finally_ speaks again. "Dinner was really good. The cake, too."

"Thank you, Noctis," Ignis says smoothly.

Six. Moogle doesn’t exactly have any helpful answers when you search for _how to tell my sworn retainer and lifelong companion that I like him as more than a friend,_ either. He’s only had two crushes ever, and he’s _really_ sure the other one won’t work out, so Noctis figures he should go for it.

Probably. Maybe.

"Specs…" Noctis starts, faltering when the intensity in Ignis’s (green, distracting) eyes ramps up by seven notches at once. "Shit. I dunno how to do this."

"What is it?" Ignis asks, concern evident in his voice. He wipes his hands on a dishtowel and crosses the kitchen to stand in front Noctis. "Can I help?"

"Sorta," Noctis mutters. He screws his eyes shut, grabs Ignis’s tie, gives it one hard yank, and presses his lips to Ignis’s.

It goes as well as any first kiss goes, if his Moogle searches are to be believed. Ignis doesn’t push him away, which he counts as step one, but when they break apart, his eyes are wider than Noctis has ever seen them.

"Noctis, I—"

Emboldened by the immediate lack of rejection, Noctis stands on his tiptoes and kisses Ignis again, more carefully this time, slotting his lips carefully against Ignis’s. They’re softer than they look, and he doesn’t know quite how to tilt his head, but he’s hoping Ignis doesn’t mind too much. The stiffness melts out of Ignis on the second kiss, and holy shit, Ignis licks into Noctis’s mouth and he tastes like strawberry frosting and Ebony and Ignis makes a low noise in the back of his throat that Noctis has never heard from him before and _is this what being horny feels like, because wow, I think I’ve been missing out_ and—

Ignis draws away from him suddenly, his hands on Noctis’s shoulders, putting them literally at arm’s length. "Wait."

"What?" Noctis asks, blood thundering in his ears as his heart races.

"I… Noctis, I’m involved with someone."

The only thing more unfathomable to Noctis than developing this crush in the first place, than nurturing it in the secret, unspoken corridors of his heart for more than a year, is that fact that Ignis has a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or… whoever.

"What?" Noctis repeats dumbly, his brain not quite processing the new information as fast as he’d like.

"Had I known…" Ignis stops, lips pursed, changes strategy. "I’m flattered, truly, but this can’t continue."

Noctis has two choices: embarrassment or anger. The first, as it turns out, leads nicely into the second. He shoves Ignis’s hands off his shoulders and scowls.

"Great. Awesome! Fucking _wonderful!_ " Noctis yells as he stomps towards his bedroom, slamming the door hard enough that the resulting noise hurts his ears. By the time he’s flung himself on his bed, Ignis is knocking at the door. "Go away!"

He ignores Ignis until the knocking stops. Then, he ignores him for two more weeks, speaking in monosyllables and retreating to his room as soon as he’s in the apartment. It’s not Ignis’s fault that Noctis is an idiot, but he has to be mad at someone, and well, Ignis is the easiest target.

At the end of the third week, Gladio kisses him, and everything changes again.

For once, Noctis eagerly looks forward to sparring. It’s a neat, safe place to vent his anger, channeling it into each strike of his sword, each dodge of Gladio’s weapon, each point he scores. If Gladio’s noticed the increased enthusiasm, he hasn’t said anything, but he’s been more forthcoming with his praise.

After the match, Noctis heads straight for the showers, a familiar sense of dread settling in the pit of his stomach. After training, Ignis will drive him home, and the last person he wants to see these days is Ignis, a complete 360 from a month ago.

"Princess. C’mere," Gladio calls from across the locker room.

Noctis offers him a no-look middle finger for his trouble.

"Stop being a brat and get your ass over here," Gladio says, not unkindly despite the colourful choice of words.

This gets Noctis to glance over his shoulder. Gladio’s hunched over on a bench, legs spread with his elbows on his knees, still dressed in the clothes they fought in. "Fuck off, Gladio."

This makes Gladio bark out a laugh. "It’ll take two minutes, then you’re free."

After heaving an impressive sigh, Noctis turns and makes his way back to where Gladio sits. "What do you want?" For good measure, he adds an eye roll.

"Closer," Gladio instructs, sitting up and beckoning Noctis forward.

"You’re not gonna suplex me again, are you?"

"No! Fucking Six, you’re pissing me off today."

"Look who’s talking."

"I ain’t got all day. Three more steps, c’mon," Gladio repeats firmly.

Sensing that he’s not going to achieve freedom without doing as Gladio asks, Noctis takes three steps forward, stopping when he stands between Gladio’s legs. "What," Noctis drawls, "do you want?"

"Three things. First—talk to Iggy." Gladio’s stern amber gaze is unyielding as he speaks the words.

"I mean, I _do_ talk to him, but whatever," Noctis protests. He knows Ignis and Gladio are close friends, but he’s not sure how much Ignis might have told him about… the birthday incident… so he’s not going to volunteer.

"Bullshit," Gladio says, one eyebrow raised. "I know you’ve been ignoring him, because Iggy told me about the kiss, because we’re dating and he thought I should know."

Astrals. Six. Maybe if Noctis prays hard enough to every god he knows, they’ll strike him dead when he stands. How unlucky can one guy be to have not one, but _both_ of his crushes involved. With each other.

"’Kay?" Noctis mutters, shrugging one shoulder.

"Which brings me to my next point…" Gladio starts.

His hands are nearly big enough to encircle Noctis’s waist as he reaches out and draws Noctis closer. This close, Noctis can smell the sharp scent of his sweat mixed with his cologne. With Gladio sitting, they’re of a height, which gives him the perfect angle to kiss Noctis. Gladio pauses long enough that Noctis could get out of his hold if he wanted to—but he doesn’t.

There’s no gentleness to it when Gladio kisses him, just a crushing together of lips with a single clack of teeth, forceful, like Gladio’s trying to prove a point to him.

Well… he _is_ trying to prove a point to him.

"Like I said," Gladio says casually, removing his hands from Noctis and giving a slow, knowing grin, "talk to Iggy. This is fuckin’ complicated, but…" A pause and a slow exhale. "We’re yours, Noct. We’ll figure it out."

"Cool."

Smooth, Noct. Smooth.

(He does talk to Ignis, two days and four chicken-outs later. The talking leads to cadenced, hesitant kisses, ones that gradually become more decisive, more urgent, intense in a way that sharpens the atmosphere around them to a keen, aching edge. Noctis unbuttons Ignis’s collared shirt with shaking hands, and Ignis cards his warm, leather-clad fingers through Noctis’s hair, and neither of them know quite what to do with the feelings rushing over the broken dam between them. _I love you_ , Ignis murmurs into Noctis’s neck, voice low and trembling, and even though it’s three weeks late, it’s one of the best birthday gifts he receives that year.) 

Prompto takes the news in stride, at least.

"Really? What’s that even _like?_ " he asks from his perch on Noctis’s couch.

"Uh. It’s…" Noctis shrugs. "Nice?"

"It sounds nice." As LEVEL COMPLETE flashes across the TV, he makes eye contact with Noctis. "You wanna play another round?"

"For sure."

(He and Gladio argue as much as they always have, but sometimes, when he doesn’t think Noctis notices, he stares, his features soft, his affection laid bare. For all his brash bravado, he keeps things solid, steady, anchoring the three of him as they wade through the mire that is being involved with each other. Gladio figures out how to rile Noctis up with the most casual of touches: a hand on the shoulder, a kiss on the nape of the neck, a pat on the back. If Noctis is really lucky, he follows through, broad hands mapping cautious pathways all over Noctis’s body. _I’m yours too_ , he rumbles, forehead pressed to Noctis’s, and Noctis believes him—oh, does he ever believe him.)

** nineteen **

There’s an interminably long, boring gala for Noctis’s nineteenth birthday. Prompto attends, which makes it more bearable, peppers the stuffy classical music with jokes about the fashion choices of Lucian nobility. In between hearing about the health issues of Lady Inaria’s second cousin’s daughter and agreeing to a dance with Iris (his only willing dance of the night), he borrows a few minutes of Ignis’s time, exchanging polite pleasantries.

It’s frustrating, having Gladio behind him like a silent shadow and Ignis weaving amongst the gathered peerage, both of them out of reach. He’s tempted— _more_ than tempted—to engage in a reckless public display of affection, but his own shyness and his father’s watchful gaze curtail the notion before it takes shape.

Gladio and Ignis make it up to him.

By the time Noctis takes three steps past the foyer of his apartment, Gladio has him in his arms and on the way to the bedroom. Ignis follows close behind, and the low, heated laugh he gives as he loosens his tie streaks through Noctis like elemancy.

Noctis likes it best with the three of them together, piled in his bed, Ignis flush against his back and Gladio on his side in front of Noctis, caging him in, keeping him safe. _I love you_ , he finds himself saying, the slow rock of Ignis’s hips and the steady motion of Gladio’s hand unraveling him at the seams. _I love you both,_ he pants, shaky, breathless, body trembling as he comes undone.

Neither of them say it back, because at this point, the words don’t matter. The knowledge of their love is engraved into his skin, his heart, his blood, his bones, organic and all encompassing and _real_.

** twenty **

**__** _We’re to be wed. I suspect the formal announcement will be forthcoming soon._

Noctis frowns at the open notebook in his lap, his world turned upside down in the span of two sentences.

 _Sounds great_ , he writes to Luna, because the truth doesn’t fit neatly in a notebook, can’t be pressed with wax to the page like a sylleblossom, and won’t change a thing.

 _We’ll do what we must_ , Ignis says, calm and collected, though Noctis knows him well enough to see his mind working rapidly behind the facade.

 _We’ll still be with you,_ Gladio says, harsh and blunt, sounding as angry as Noctis feels. But like always, its duty first with Gladio, duty above all else—even his love, even his life.

His birthday comes. He gets a bride-to-be and a car for reaching the milestone of being on Eos for twenty whole years, which seems fucked up when he thinks about it too long. Prompto loves the car, at least, and avoids asking about both the wedding and the two boyfriends situation, and Noctis wonders for the umpteenth time how he got lucky enough to have a best friend like Prompto.

As time passes, each kiss tastes more bitter, each caress cuts like a blade, and yet Noctis keeps throwing himself into Ignis and Gladio’s arms, each meeting more desperate than the last.

By the day they set out for the wedding, Noctis doesn’t hug his dad goodbye, too resentful for dutiful, familial farewells.

War comes.

( _Why did he not tell me?_ )

Insomnia falls.

( _He couldn’t have known, Noctis_. Ignis tries to pacify him with platitudes, but it only makes him angrier.)

His dad dies.

( _It’s not fair!_ Noctis yells the words at the ocean, staring out the window of their fancy Galdin Quay hotel room. _You’ve gotta keep it together, Noct_ , Gladio insists, but his eyes are hollow and rimmed with red.)

They work themselves to the bone hunting, and collecting the Royal Arms, and forging covenants with the Astrals. Noctis feels like he’s tied to the world by a single, fraying string; the only things keeping it (and him) from snapping are nights spent sleeping between Gladio and Ignis, impromptu fishing trips and photography sessions with Prompto, and the gut churning need for revenge.

They arrive in Altissia.

Lunafreya dies.

(Grief drowns him like the Tidemother’s raging oceans. He could have loved her, he could have, but he never got the chance to try.)

Ignis nearly dies.

(How much will they all sacrifice on the altars of love and duty? How much blood will pour down the sides of it until the gods are satisfied?)

Noctis grows tired of games and gods.

He hands Ignis over to Gladio for safekeeping, lines up his shot, warps, and disappears into the light of the Crystal.

He is twenty years old.

** twenty-one through twenty-nine **

There are no birthdays in the Crystal because there’s no time. There are only the Astrals, their ancient magic, and the Chosen King.

There’s nothing to do but wait.

So Noctis waits.

** thirty **

Ten years.

Ten years of his friends waiting for him in utter darkness, of daemons roaming Eos, of the Accursed and his schemes, of a constant struggle for survival.

Prompto runs to him first, flinging his arms around Noctis, a torrent of words bubbling forth from his lips so fast that Noctis can’t make them out, but he’s smiling and laughing, so Noctis figures they’re good.

“Welcome back,” Ignis says, scarred lips curving in a smile, enfolding Noctis in his arms as though he’d never been gone.

“Missed you,” Gladio mutters, thumping Noctis a little too hard on the back as they embrace, warm and broad and comforting.

(They spend a handful of hours in the relative privacy of the caravan for a more private reunion. _I thought you’d have moved on,_ Noctis admits. _Never_ , Ignis breathes, hands ghosting along Noctis’s ribs. _Then you’re dumber than you look_ , Gladio teases with a quiet, thick laugh. Gladio draws Noctis into a sensuous, deep kiss, and then Ignis takes his turn, yielding as Noctis licks into his mouth, and suddenly ten years feels like no time at all.)

They build a campfire, just like old times, and prepare to finally return to the ruins that count as home.

Prompto brings out a cake bristling with candles, nearly as bright as the campfire in the endless black, a hesitant smile on his face.

“Figured we’d catch up on all the birthdays you missed, buddy,” Prompto says, setting the cake on the foldout table Ignis placed in front of him. “Make a wish?”

Noctis swallows, makes a token effort to fight back his tears, then lets them fall.

“Thanks. You guys… are the best.”

He takes a deep breath, makes his wish, and blows.

(It works.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated if you enjoyed. <3
> 
> Come find me over on [Tumblr](http://aliatori.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AliatoriEra).


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